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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Biblical creation scientists have frequently shown that the universe is not cooperating with the claims of long-age scientists, and the secularists have to keep resorting to using fantasy fiction to keep the Big Bang, formation of the solar system, and other hypotheses going. Since what is observed does not fit their ideas, various "dark" things are made up. There's not a whole heap of value to working on something that cannot be observed or detected, and only looks good on paper.

Dark matter was conjured up to support the Big Bang and galaxy formation. Going smaller, stars that make up galaxies need this stuff to form "naturally" (that is, to presume there is no Creator, even though he is the best explanation for the observed evidence). Let's let Dr. Hartnett explain in detail.

‘Dark matter’ is an essential ingredient to form stars naturally given only standard known physics. ‘Dark matter’ is a hypothetical exotic form of matter, unknown to laboratory physics, which does not interact with or emit light in any way, hence it is invisible to all forms of detection within the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio-waves to gamma radiation. ‘Dark matter’ itself, therefore, is outside of standard known physics. It is made-up stuff that has been given one special property, which is that it gravitates, that is, unlike normal matter, it is a source of gravity only.

Friday, December 25, 2015

Most evolutionists insist on riding the Philosophical and Methodological Naturalism Trail, we get that. It leads to a steep cliff and bad science, but it's their choice. But some owlhoots insist that their naturalistic views and empiricism are the be-all and end-all of knowledge, so they arrogantly use their Darwinian presuppositions to "explain" theology.

The virgin birth of Jesus cannot be explained by parthenogenesis. This idea is not only terrible science, but they disunderstand theology with a vengeance. There are many prophesies about Jesus' birth, and it is very important to the gospel message. Christmas is about the Creator taking on human form (Phil. 2:5-11, Col. 1:16, John 1:3), as prophesied, for our redemption. All have sinned against God and deserve death, but God has given us salvation as a gift (Rom. 3:23, Rom. 6:23). We need to humble ourselves and repent — seek the savior, not intellectualized excuses.Evolution is a philosophy of rebellion against God. If people want to reject him, that's on them. But to show such disrespect and blasphemy to support naturalistic views is beyond the pale. Then they proclaim that they know "reality", based on their question-begging presuppositions. Not hardly!

Secular scientists are free to disbelieve in the Virgin Birth, but should at least try to understand what they are denying.Current Biology published a blooper. In a Dispatch on the subject of Parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction by unfertilized eggs), Casper J. van der Kooi and Tanja Schwander from the University of Lausanne did fine discussing fish, moths and reptiles. But they really should have stayed out of theology and Biblical interpretation. Here’s the opening:

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Over the years, particles-to-pathologist evolutionary thinking has led to a passel of serious errors in science based on the "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" lie. We've had the "vestigial organs" fiasco that was founded on ignorance of function (they're not useless leftovers from an imagined evolutionary past, but actually functional), so-called "junk" DNA, and more. Much of this is funded by tax money.

Evolutionary stories are good for filling time around the campfire on the trail, but when it comes to something important like cancer research, such thinking is lethal. Using evolutionary assumptions in cancer research is fundamentally flawed and loaded with circular reasoning, and creation science has contrary explanations that can go one-on-one with the spurious research of evolutionary scientists; a creation worldview in science can yield results that are helpful.

Few topics in science news generate more excitement than prospects for curing cancer. Whether or not dinosaurs had feathers is all well and good, but cancer research is a topic that hits people where they live, and where they suffer. Can evolutionary science help medical scientists fight this devastating array of diseases?Temple University’s Sudhir Kumar and colleagues have jumped on that evolutionary cancer research bandwagon. They claim that their study of 500 million years of genetic patterns across the vertebrate evolutionary tree can—through evolutionary predictions—accurately predict mutations associated with cancer and, as a sort of bonus, even explain the genetic underpinnings of human evolution.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

One of the famous aspects of science fiction is dystopian stories that had a bleak vision of the future, despite scientific and technological advances of humanity. Aspects of Orwell's 1984 are chillingly real (was 1984 a warning or an instruction manual?), and Huxley's Brave New World may be closer than we think. With CRISPR genetic editing added to our accomplishments, the future is now.

Is genetic editing a good thing? Change the genome in individuals and eliminate certain defects, that sounds mighty fine on the surface. This naturally raises questions of ethics. Who makes the decisions and rules? If ethical considerations are established by people with a "survival of the fittest" and social Darwinian eugenics views, leaving out biblical views as "unscientific" because they threaten Scientism philosophies, we're in for a world of hurt.

New tools in the lab put human nature at risk. Can we trust fallible scientists to be ethical?A dystopian future is becoming more plausible, thanks to genomic editing. We don’t mean to scare you. We’ll let the scientists themselves do that.“Scientists from around the world are meeting in Washington this week to debate how best to proceed with research into gene-editing technology,” Julian Saveluscu begins an article on The Conversation. He’s not worried; he likes gene editing. He gives “Five reasons we should embrace gene-editing research on human embryos.” And he’s an ethicist, a distinguished visiting professor at Monash University. He knows about the risks.

Wednesday, December 09, 2015

The comet with the difficult name, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (more easily referred to as 67P/C-G, or even 67P) was visited by the ESA's Rosetta probe, which in turn sent the Philae to land on the thing. Quite a trick, traveling for ten years and meeting up with the moving object was impressive, but to have a robotic probe land on it, well, that really takes the rag off the bush.

Like so many other celestial objects under investigation, this comet is being a mite irksome for believers in an ancient cosmos. It's emitting water and oxygen, and not acting as old as secularists would like it to be. In fact, 67P is showing evidence of what biblical creationists have been saying all along: the universe was created recently.

The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe travelled all the way to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko to collect unprecedented cometary details. The space probe keeps sending unexpected particulars about the comet—particulars with implications far beyond the comet itself.As Rosetta approached the comet in the fall of 2014, its instruments began detecting chemicals in space nearby the comet. The mission's earliest discoveries included an unexpected fountain-like emission of over 6,000 gallons of water vapor per day. Similar to the plumes that eject material into space from Saturn's moon Enceladus, this surprising level of activity points to a much younger comet than commonly asserted.

Wednesday, December 02, 2015

When you want to reproduce something, sometimes it's easy. You can "clone" your hard drive, make a copy of an image, paint a replica of a famous work of art, and so on. But those are just copies using existing materials. Suppose I saw a saddle I admired and wanted to reproduce it. That would take a whole heap of work, getting materials, laying out plans, having the intelligence to put it all together, and so on.

Mechanically reproducing things, whether data, images, saddles, coffee tables, or whatever, come from the outside. An essential sign of life is that living things reproduce from the information that the Creator has built into their DNA — his mind and plans existed before he made everything.

‘Vital signs’. ‘Signs of life’. What are they? How do we decide if something is living or not? We know living things grow, respire/metabolize, move, and are responsive to the environment. Perhaps the most important ‘sign of life’, however, is the ability to reproduce—the power a living thing has to make a living copy of itself. How can this happen? How do we produce a copy of something, living or not?Suppose we saw a coffee table at someone’s house, and wanted to make one for our own house, exactly like it. What would we need? We would need to know the materials it is made of, the exact shape of every component, methods of producing these components, and the order for putting the parts together (including intermediate stages such as supporting structures while glue sets, etc.) In other words, we need information, and lots of it.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Advocates of bird-to-dinosaur evolution got the bit between their teeth and are running wild. Whenever there's something that can be even remotely seen as a "feather" it trumpet as evidence of said evolution. Not only are they arguing from their presuppositions (an all too common occurrence), they are conducting sloppy science.

A few years ago, markings on an ostrich-like fossil had a kinda maybe sorta resemblance to feather filaments. A newer study supposedly affirms the previous study In both cases, the mad runaways did not examine the evidence thoroughly or examine other possibilities. One of those is that the keratin structure resembles feather filaments, but the same kind of keratin structure is also found in reptiles and other critters, including humans. Another bit of sloppy science is that this alleged transitional form is the wrong age, since actual birds appear earlier in the fossil record according to their own reckoning. Third, there is skin and other soft tissues in the fossil. These owlhoots really need to do their homework before making announcements. What we really have is a dinosaur that is just what it was created to be: a dinosaur without feathers. Filaments are not feathers! We also have no evidence for evolution, old son.

Fuzz on an Ornithomimus fossil found in 2009 supposedly fluffs out the feathery picture of this dinosaur paleontologists commonly call the “ostrich mimic.” Building on a previous claim that Ornithomimus had feathered ostrich-like wings, the latest research demonstrates that its so-called feathers were reduced to fibrous wisps on most of the body and that the hind legs were virtually bare.The latest study, published in an October 2015 issue of Cretaceous Research, builds on assertions in another study from a few year’s ago. As we discussed in “Feathered Dinosaurs Found in Canada?,” Darla Zelenitsky’s team found some straight markings on another Ornithomimus fossil’s front leg bones. Measuring up to a quarter of an inch long, her team thought the lines were what the insertion points of shafted feather quills would look like if fossilized. Therefore, they interpreted these as proof that Ornithomimus had abundant wing feathers.
When we say “builds on” we mean that quite literally, for the fossil studied by van der Reest’s team had no preserved front limbs nor any bones with the markings like those described in Zelenitsky’s specimen. Therefore, they include photographs of Zelenitsky’s fossil in their study. This helps them complete the picture they paint of a very ostrich-like dinosaur strutting about with plumaceous wings, downy body, and naked legs.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Seems like the established order of when certain early humans appeared changes faster than Pony Express relay riders. Somebody finds bones, teeth, artifacts, and whatnot, and things get rearranged. Repeatedly. For instance, we get the Neanderthals out of "order" repeatedly because of newer findings (the randy rascals bred with "modern" humans in a variety of places, and their DNA is fully human). Other things that were considered human were reassigned as fully human, fully ape, or just plain wrong.

There's been another misdeal. Everyone give back your cards...yes, even the one you stuck up your sleeve, we all saw you...and there's going to be a new shuffle and deal. Teeth were found in China that are bothering paleoanthropologists. Let's hope they don't have another Nebraska Man fiasco on their hands. Know why this silliness happens? Because much-to-museum-curator evolution is fantasy, and science supports special creation, that's why.

Is the truth in the teeth? Modern-looking human teeth in a Chinese cave create improbable migration patterns and dates.The old story: modern humans emerged out of Africa 40,000 years ago and conquered the Neanderthals.The new story: modern humans migrated to south China 80,000 to 120,000 years ago, but not into north China; that’s where the simpletons hung out. Then, 40,000 to 80,000 years later, the moderns decided to go west into Europe after the Neanderthals started committing collective suicide or starved, unable to support themselves as they had for up to half a million years. The moderns married some of the Neanderthals and had kids that became us, but shoved the others out and moved into their caves. They didn’t think about civilization for another 30,000 years but made some nice art, some of it as good as Picasso.
Does this make any sense?

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Nobody can pretend that people have not been harmful to the environment. But from an evolutionary standpoint, so what? We're at the top of the pile, doing that "survival of the fittest" thing, so we're doing what seems right in our own eyes. Logically, an evolutionist has no right to complain, no consistent standard on which to base his complaints.

Let's saddle up an analogy for a romp around the corral, shall we? Since so many people are so hell-bent on finding something to be offended about, I'm going to make up a minority group and call them the carbonites, since we're all carbon-based life forms according to V'ger. Well, the carbonites have a high crime rate. The steal, murder, use illegal drugs, plagiarize authors, troll the Web, and do all sorts of nasty things. Stupid, too. But there are good carbonites as well, church-going, charity-giving, helpful, hardworking, intelligent. Well hey, you can't condemn the entire ethnic group because of the actions of a few. Yet, there are some environmentalists who condemn all of humanity because of the actions of others, and ignore those who are doing good things for the environment.Atheists and evolutionists do not have a consistent foundation for their worldviews, so when they say something is "wrong", they are appealing to a higher standard: God the Creator. That's where we're coming from. We believe in being good stewards of Earth as is taught in the Bible.

By driving some animals extinct, are humans damaging the whole planet? Who will be the judge?Several news articles recently have worried about the harm people are doing to animal species. A look through history, though, shows that humans have always done this. Roman emperors rounded up African wild animals for the arenas. It’s possible that humans were largely responsible for the disappearance of large mammals in North America. In our time, poachers are driving elephants and rhinos extinct unless they can be stopped. But if humans are products of evolution, who is to say these are evil practices?
Certainly many humans are righteously concerned about endangered species, and are investing their lives in saving them. Conservationists have been shot by poachers. If a tiny percentage are killing elephants, can you fault the whole population?

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Phosphates (natural compounds containing phosphorus) are used in detergents, industry, and agriculture. Some of it comes from guano, and there's money in it, as referenced in the Ian Fleming novel Dr. No, and in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (Ventura said to the bad guy, "You want that dookie so bad you can taste it!") Who would've cognated that bird and bat poo could be not only useful, but valuable?

My sources in the Central Intelligence Agency informed me (all right, I looked it up online in the World Factbook) that the tiny island of Nauru is the world's smallest independent republic in the United Nations. Not much going for it, not even tourism, but it does have phosphates. Uniformitarian assumptions are that the deposition takes millions of years, so the biblical timeline from the Genesis Flood must be wrong. However, people making such assumptions are neglecting the fact the bird droppings are not the only source of nitrates.

Today’s feedback is from G.S. from Australia who said:

I have just been challenged by an atheist/evolutionist who claims that the large phosphate deposits in places like Nauru could not have come about in thousands of years—but only in millions of years. Are you aware of any articles or information which might be relevant?

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Once again, Darwinists worked themselves into a lather over a putative transitional form. This time, another turtle. There are several things that make this work for them.

First, assume billions of years. Second, assume evolution is a fact. Third, ignore the variety of past and present forms of turtles. Fourth, forget about the amazing engineering of their shells. Fifth, do not take into account relevant data and alternative explanations. Sixth, do not even consider the possibility that God is the creator, and that's why there is no actual evidence for evolution.Other than those small details, sure, they lassoed themselves a transitional form. Yee ha.

Pappochelys, whose name means “grandfather turtle,” is the latest fossil to be called a “transitional form” or “missing link” in turtle evolution. (The last one was Eunotosaurus, which we discussed in “Turtle in the Gap.” Before that it was Odontochelys, discussed in “A Sea of Change for Turtle Origin Theories.”)Pappochelys was found in Germany’s Middle Triassic Lower Keuper formation. It has an unusual skull and lacks a fused shell. Evolutionary scientists believe Pappochelys appeared 240 million years ago as a transitional step in the evolution of the turtle shell. The authors of the study describing “grandfather turtle” also believe its skull confirms that turtles evolved millions of years ago from lizard-like reptiles.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Dark nights bring out the bats. Actually, they generally start their activity at dusk, and eat a passel of insects among other things. They're also pollinators and effective seed dispersal units (through guano, like birds), and bats are beneficial in many ways. But don't get careless, they're wild animals and should not be handled by untrained people.No, they're not blind, so you can leave that "blind as a bat" expression behind. But not many critters can see so well in total darkness, so they have other ways to compensate.

Bats have an amazing echolocation system. There is no evidence for evolution of bats or their abilities, even though evolutionists still insist that EvolutionDidIt™. Also, some of the moths and other insects they eat can sense the sonar and take evasive action. Then the bats compensate. The more bats are studied, the more amazing this complex system really is — and that's a strong testimony to the Creator. Evolution? Not hardly!

Picture a calm summer evening. Most people are only dimly aware of the aerial creatures that may dart and dive nearby. Indeed, many would think these animals are birds unless their activity is closely observed. They would be surprised to discover these flying creatures are actually bats using their designed sonar to detect and track insects as small as mosquitos—prey these bats pick up and devour on the wing and in the dark.Looking at the amazing design features of a typical bat, Douglas Futuyma assumes “the only scientific explanation of adaptations is the theory of evolution by natural selection.”

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Liquid water on Mars? Some evolutionists raising a ruckus like drunken cowboys in a saloon after a long cattle drive over the prospect of water still existing on Mars. Like so many other "finds", people are making unjustified extrapolations about the prospect even though there has been no direct evidence of it. Also, the kind of "water" is probably too awful for any kind of life.

Some Darwinoids are projecting that water on Mars means maybe perhaps possibly there is a large amount of water that we can't see, and life probably evolved on Mars. If so, then it probably evolved on many other planets in the universe. Not hardly! Mankind is unique, and life was created here. Recently.

Finding minimal amounts of salty water contaminated with perchorates is not helpful to life.The optimistic astrobiology reporter Pallab Ghosh at the BBC is at it again, tantalizing readers with thoughts of Martians. In his piece “Is there life on Mars?” he retells the history of his optimistic antecedent, Percival Lowell, who spent his fortune seeking the “canals” on Mars that he mistranslated from Schiaparelli’s map. Ghosh whisks the reader along to Vikings 1 and 2 that, in 1976, seemed to present negative results on the life question. But now, he says, new findings about gullies on some craters has provided “The strongest evidence yet that water still flows on the Martian surface.”

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Atheism and it's cousin agnosticism have no consistent foundation for morality. Some people look to evolution for morality, but that concept is fundamentally flawed as well. When it's pointed out that the biggest mass murderers of all time were atheist evolutionists, deniers often respond with the "no true atheist" fallacy and say that atheism had nothing to do with their atrocities. Although they are not known to have proclaimed, "I am killing in the name of atheism!", they had no moral basis to hinder their actions. Further, they were fervent Darwinists, doing their part to help natural selection through extermination, eugenics, abortion, and so on.

Leon Trotsky (born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein) had weak religious views. Eventually, he turned to Marxism with a passion, and Darwin's views helped him solidify his atheism. (Marx said of Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, "Darwin’s book is very important and serves me as a basis in natural science for the class struggle in history."When people erroneously claim that atheism is not a religion, they should examine how Trotsky went to great lengths to promote atheism and attack Christianity. He rejected his Creator, effective embraced naturalism, and merged Marx's political views with Darwin's evolution hypothesis and his own atheism. He was sent to his grave on the orders of Stalin, another atheist Darwinist. How can an atheist or evolutionist complain? They were taking evolution and atheism to their logical, relativistic conclusion.

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) was the organizer, propagandist, and military leader of the communist seizure of power in Russia following the revolution of 1917. He was communist dictator Lenin’s heir apparent, until Stalin usurped this position. Intolerant, tactless and impatient, Trotsky had an unbounded faith in Marxism, which was reinforced by his uncritical acceptance of Darwinism.His fanatical faith in these ideologies and his angry intolerance of enemies saw him use the Red Army to crush the enemies of the newly formed Soviet state in the Russian Civil War of 1918–20. He instituted the militarization of civilian labour and the confiscation of food from peasants. He crushed the Ukrainian Army of Insurgent Peasants; and its anarchist guerrilla leader, Nestor Makhno (1889–1934), who had been his ally against the White Russians, was badly wounded but managed to flee the country with his family. Trotsky brutally suppressed the Soviet sailors at Kronstadt, and committed other acts of violence with ease, ‘because of his absolute conviction that they served the purposes of the proletariat and its permanent revolution’.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

When a butterflies flutter by, the color seems to change on some of them. Their coloring is not from pigmentation, but tiny iridescent scales reflecting light. Some fascinating science and technology is being used to develop blast badges for soldiers on the battlefield. From the amount of color change, the intensity of the blast can be detected.God gave us intelligently designed minds to investigate our world and benefit from what we've learned. Biomimetics applications like this are an excellent example.

Diagnosing and treating brain trauma is particularly tricky, since the extent of the injury can’t be directly detected, and the severity depends on the strength of the blast, which doctors can’t observe. Furthermore, symptoms of serious damage don’t always appear right away. Slowly progressing brain damage can go undetected and undiagnosed, sometimes for years. To make diagnosis even more challenging, symptoms can mimic those of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the same university’s School of Engineering and Applied Science are working to develop a type of “blast badge” to affix on the uniforms and helmets of soldiers in combat. The invention was inspired by the delicate beauty of the butterfly.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Despite historic data, scientific evidence, and common sense, some evolutionists insist that dinosaurs evolved into birds. If you study on it a mite, you'll realize that the idea of something as complex as feathers evolving from scales, the evolution of flying ability, the claim that bird-hipped dinosaurs are not the ones to evolve into birds instead of lizard-hipped, complete rearrangement of internal organs — nope, that dog don't hunt. Add to this an examination of a T. rex brain cast compared to the brains of birds, you'll see that more and more evidence shows that birds and dinosaurs were created separately, and it makes no sense to believe in dinosaur-to-bird evolution.

Evolutionists insist that dinosaurs evolved into birds, despite the strong evidence against it.1 One of the portrayed misconceptions concerns the brains of large predatory dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex that have been depicted as similar to the brains of their bird “descendants.” However, CT scans of T. rex skulls give scientists additional details of its brain cavity, demonstrating its large olfactory lobe (for smell) and an overall shape that is much more similar to modern alligators than birds.Bird brains have a completely different shape from those of dinosaurs and reptiles, with a larger section for processing data. Birds have to do more than sense a food source; they have to be able to discern one food source from another. Alligators merely smell something and snap at it without thinking. Not only is a bird’s brain shaped differently, but pound for pound relative to body weight, the typical bird brain is much larger than a typical reptile brain by nearly an order of magnitude (or ten times).

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

How old is the Grand Canyon? Depends on who you ask. Did dinosaurs take a gander at it, and see the rare weather inversion? Maybe, the fees are not all that outrageous at Grand Canyon National Park. But seriously, creationists and old Earth scientists sort of agree: not hardly. Well, depending on which creationist model, you might get a "maybe but not likely". Secular scientists with their "deep time" assumptions start reckoning its age at several million years, and they can't agree on which end is older.

Evolutionists and creationists agree that dinosaurs did not look over the rim of Grand Canyon – but for different reasons.To understand how a feature was made, it’s helpful to know how old it is. Unfortunately, for one of Earth’s most striking features—the Grand Canyon of Arizona—age estimates vary widely. The Geological Society of America admits that a consensus age has been hard to come by:

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

Some people who profess belief in the Bible will balk when it comes to the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Many believe that "science says" it's not true, so they find reasons to believe it through compromise, such as, "It's poetry or allegory, but not history".

If these people would cognate on it a mite, they'd realize that the early chapters of Genesis are written as narrative, and there is no dividing line where they suppose "real" biblical history begins. In addition, the forms of poetry are markedly different than narrative styles in the Bible. The days of Genesis 1 are clearly defined as literal solar days, not long ages or poetry.

Our ministry supports the authority of the Bible from the very first verse. However, some opponents of biblical (‘young earth’) creation also claim to believe in the authority of Scripture, but claim that Genesis 1–11 is poetry or allegory. Others rebuke us by claiming, “Genesis is not a scientific textbook”. If I’m in a playful mood, I’ll reply, “Thank goodness, because scientific textbooks become outdated in a few years”. Otherwise I reply that we claim it’s really a book about history—events that really happened in the past.To justify this, it’s important to show what type of book Genesis is.2 To do this, we should compare Scripture with Scripture.

Wednesday, September 02, 2015

One of the most polarizing issues today is global warming. No, wait. Since there is no global warming, it's become "global climate change". No, wait. Yes, there is global warming, but not in the way the alarmists want people to think. They pitched their tent in an arroyo, flash flood of reality came along, so it's time to ride up on a hill and get a bigger view.

The global warming alarmists (usually leftist politicians with an agenda, and people with an evolutionary worldview) use a great deal of emotion to rail against those who disagree with their views (including calling us "deniers"), but the science is not conclusive. 2014 was called the "warmest year on record" using biased and disreputable "science". Al Gore was in a rhythm promoting global warming (which can be called an Algore Rhythm...get it?), and made hysterical predictions that were not true — especially that bit about the North Pole becoming "ice free" by 2014. He's not a scientist, just a false prophet. There are scientists who are on record for denying global warming, but they seem to be waved off by popular emotion-driven opinion.There's no anthropogenic global warming, and there nothing appreciable in the last 15 years. In fact, there were scares in the 1970s that there was going to be another ice age from global cooling! What's the view from the hill we rode up on to get, anyway?

There continues to be a furor over climate change. Some are convinced that our climate is fragile, that human activities are causing dangerous changes to the climate, and that immediate corrective action is essential. Others are skeptical. The skeptics, like me, believe that some of the claims are not well supported by the evidence. Emotions run high as some advocates for corrective action label the skeptics as “deniers” because they are so certain those dire consequences are imminent. The skeptics are often infuriated with the advocates because they are worried that higher energy costs will unnecessarily lower the standard of living for everyone. Clearly, climate change is not purely a scientific question. Emotions only run this high when the issue will affect how we live. In this political debate, the issues have become clouded (pun intended), and the facts are often ignored.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

In deep south Mexico, and further south into Central and South America (with some appearances in Florida, USA), you might come across the basilisk lizard. It's been a bad boy as far as Darwinists are concerned, since not only is there no fossil evidence for its evolution, but the oldest fossil shows that it's virtually unchanged over alleged millions of years.

But wait, there's more! The basilisk befuddles evolutionists with its ability to sprint across water. It's been nicknamed the "Jesus lizard" for this reason. Guess they didn't read the part where Peter did the same thing, but I reckon that people wouldn't cotton to the less dramatic name of "Peter lizard". Not only is there no string of evidence back to the supposed common ancestor of lizards, but no way to imagine how it evolved its strange water-walking ability. Let's face it, the biblical creation makes far more sense. Let the article explain more:

Jesus lizards literally run across the surface of ponds in Central and South America. According to evolutionary thinking, all reptiles—snakes, turtles, gavials, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, chameleons, skinks, and Jesus lizards—descended from an unknown original reptilian form. What evidence might demonstrate this? Strings of fossils should clearly connect each basic reptile kind back to that supposed key ancestor. It should have interchangeable or adjustable body features that natural forces could have manipulated without disrupting the evolving creature's essential functions. A newly discovered fossil of a Jesus lizard in Wyoming shows just the opposite evidence.. . .
They discovered that moving across water requires unique features. This lizard doesn't really crawl across water—it motors.

To read the full article in context, click on "Jesus Lizard Runs on Water, Tramples Evolution". Also, see the short video below of the basilisk running in slow motion (except for one short bit where it shows it can run five feet per second on water), with cute music.

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Picture this in your mind: A cowboy is riding the range at night, and looks up at the starry sky. And keeps looking, pondering the grandeur. Seeing the stars has always had an effect on me as well. (For that matter, sitting on the couch and reading an article, Basement Cat jumps up and wants to be petted. Purrrrrrr. Sometimes I get a mite overwhelmed because her life is in my hands, but she trusts me; it's easy to show kindness and make an animal happy.) How about looking at Niagara Falls in New York, Blue Mountains in Australia, Ngorongoro Crater in Africa — you get the idea. That feeling is awe.

Animals don't do it. They just go on about their business, not seeming to notice the glories of creation around them, and definitely not writing symphonies or sonnets. Awe is special to humans, and does not have any evolutionary purpose or explanation. However, the biblical worldview explains it.

Psychologists are noticing that a sense of awe makes you a better person. Why is it a uniquely human trait?Animals have some of the best views of the world: geese that sly over Mt. Everest, squirrels that gather nuts at the edge of the Grand Canyon, butterflies that travel over the continental United States to Mexico. No adventurer in a wingsuit (video) gets a more thrilling ride than a peregrine falcon gets every day. But we don’t see animals pausing to soak it all in. Birds and whales sing for communication or to attract mates, but we don’t know of any animals that vocalize music in response to the pure beauty and majesty of the earth. None of them write poetry about it. It’s a uniquely human experience to express transcendental thoughts in response to majestic sights and ideas beyond ourselves. We call it awe.As reported in “News from Eden” (5/20/15), the American Psychological Association has recognized awe as a motivator for altruism. Expanding on that theme, Paul Piff from UC Irvine says that “Seeing awe-inspiring natural sights makes you a better person” (New Scientist). Simple experiments proved to him that “no matter who you are, awe” has the power to make us nicer.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

"God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars."— Genesis 1:16, WEB

The biblical account of creation adds a phrase like "He also made the stars", or "...and the stars", or similar (depending on the translation you use), reading almost like a "by the way" remark. It's like, "Yeah, he done that, too, Pilgrim, no big deal".

Secularists will tell you that they're ancient, except the ones that don't act their age. Then we're told that they're forming, even though nobody has actually seen a star form (they're speculating through their paradigm). The vague term "stellar evolution" covers some things that creationists agree with, but atheistic cosmogony and cosmology are products of philosophy, not observable science. There is a large variety of stars (and an astounding number of them) in size, brightness, and so on. And yet, our Creator cares for us.

The Hebrew word for ‘star’ is kôkāb (כוכב). When trying to understand the Bible, the goal is to work out how the original readers would have understood it. In this case, we should work out what the ancient Hebrews meant by kôkāb, which is not identical to the meaning that modern astronomers give to the word ‘star’.The biblical meaning of kôkāb ‘star’ is any small bright heavenly object, so it would include meteors (‘shooting stars’). It would also include what the ancient Greek astronomers called an astēr planētēs (αστήρ πλανήτης), meaning ‘wandering star’, which of course we now call a ‘planet’. Logically, this would include planets around other stars, which have proved a headache for evolutionary theories of planetary origin.However, modern astronomers classify stars as gigantic luminous balls of plasma in hydrostatic equilibrium, where the outward radiation pressure balances inward gravity. Thus in the modern definition, but not the biblical one, our sun is a star. This means that we can use the sun as a point of comparison for the other stars.

To read the rest of the article in context, click on this overly-long title: "Stars".

Wednesday, August 05, 2015

One thing that puts a burr under the saddle of atheists is to tell them that their belief system is a religion, and they really get upset when you give evidence for it. Their main objection is that they don't believe in God or any gods, but if you study on it, you'll realize that to all intents and purposes, atheism is as much a religion as other non-theistic world religions. Indeed, some Satanic religions do not believe in Satan as an actual person.

I reckon that I've never encountered an atheist that is not an evolutionist. After all, they need evolution to give them a mythology of origins so they can be (to borrow from Clinton Richard Dawkins) "an intellectually fulfilled atheist". To make matters worse, evolutionism is a religion as well. It's not just a systematic study of biological, geological, and astronomical origins, but also a worldview that brings us Social Darwinism, eugenics, scientific racism, and other evils.Generally, atheists claim to believe in logic and reason. When you ask why they reject the God that they really do know exists (Romans 1:18-22), you're hit with prejudicial conjecture (such as, "The Bible was written by Bronze Age goat herders" or similar nonsense), hasty generalization, and many other logical fallacies. Fact is, they try to intellectualize their spiritual condition, which is rebellion against God.

A letter written to Answers in Genesis by a misotheist on the prod was full of logical fallacies and self-refuting statements to justify rebellion against God. (The letter is typical of many comments that can be seen on teh interwebs.) Tim Chaffey responded, you can read it by clicking on "Feedback: Is Atheism a Religion?"

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The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.Francis Maitland Balfour

The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas – a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated — Ronald Reagan

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The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.Francis Maitland Balfour